Benny Leonard (1917) vs Sam Langford (1903)

This is how I remembered it. I would like to see Clay chime in.

 

You put it perfectly in your post aswell. Some fighters are completely different at different weight classes and Sam IMO was no exception :good

 

Hi Webs.

Which guys did he lose to at LW would you consider to be bums?

 

Pretty sure there was one guy with a record of 0-2 and drew with a few with similar records. And one was like 26-10.

 

The only losses he had were to Dave Holly--who was a fantastic fighter and a top ranking LW-- and Danny Duane, who was an excellent, albeit inconsistent, fighter.

You have to keep in mind that a lot of the records of these opponents are VERY incomplete. So don't be fooled by an 0-2 record on Boxrec. Chances are the fighter had many more fights that haven't been discovered yet. Boxrec is working on that around the clock.

Cheers:good

 

Christ I just checked his page and I was way off atsch literally don't even know where I gained that false info from :-(

 

When you have two guys with outstanding skills, such as Leonard and Langford. It may come down to who is the longer guy. In this case Langford.

 

What do you mean by "longer"? Is the 3 inch reach advantage Langford held over Leonard more convincing that Leonard's amazing record at lightweight compared to Landford's skimpy resume at that weight?

 

Luckily that's a pretty significant achievement.

And fought (at least) on even terms with Walcott.

Are you a noob?

 

Would seem as though he beat Walcott outright.

His top wins from Lightweight to Heavyweight are pretty unparalleled. I remember a thread a while back asking to give examples of fighters who had done something similar to his achievement.

 

Happens to all of us

 

i remember that thread. it got some interesting responses but really, few could compare. armstrong and greb maybe came closest

 

I'd have to go back and look at early fights he actually fought as a lightweight. Pretty impressive that he defeated Gans at such a young age but Sam was actually a few pounds over the lightweight limit at the time and as a result wasn't awarded the title. I see that Boxrec sites a local source as having both Sam and Joe Walcott at 142 pounds when that pair fought. Off the top of my head, I don't know what Sam weighed when he fought Dave Holly and George McFadden in 1904 and would have to go back and look. He grew out of the lightweight division relatively quickly as I recall.

 

No one is going to mention that Gans fought Dave Holly literally the day before hoped on a train from Pennsylvania and still dropped a close decision? Langford is brilliant but even he would admit he was crude at that stage of his career, and Leonard is probably a bridge too far.

 

"No one is going to mention that Gans fought Dave Holly literally the day before hoped on a train from Pennsylvania and still dropped a close decision?"

That's true. Gans obviously took Sam too lightly. It always amazes me to read about the frequency of fights guys fought in those days and how close together some of them were.